A System’s Analysis of Ethnic Agitations and Antagonisms in Nigeria

Abstract

Political systems are self reinforcing aiming at stability through its mutually coordinating engagements of its structures working to a near functional perfection. The failure of institutional capacity spurts instability exemplified by political and social upheavals demanding for changes sometimes very radical. Violence and sustained agitations are exemplars in many political societies. Competition for access to scarce resources by Nigeria’s ethnically choking polity has often resulted in unending spectre of instabilities since the 1960s. Ethnic agitations against marginalization have underscored the majority-minority interface in Nigeria’s history of political governance. The return of democracy in the late 1990s provided the open space for eruption of State suppressed grievances. The agitations in the Niger Delta for a new phase of fiscal federalism to sustained farmers-herder clashes across the country are notable indications. Political inclusivity and a fair system of distribution of national resources hold the promise for stability in Nigeria.

Keywords: instability, system, conversion, agitations